Nobody ever expects that a strong, healthy man is going to die.

My father was a well man only four hours before he died;--it was one of the first cholera cases in New Orleans.

The day after the funeral, my father's wife took her children, and went up to her father's plantation.

I thought they treated me strangely, but didn't know.

There was a young lawyer who they left to settle the business; and he came every day, and was about the house, and spoke very politely to me.